For over a decade, Verso Books — “the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world” — has been publishing its “Radical Thinkers” series, which reprints “important works of theory and philosophy” in small, themed sets. This week, they have released the 17th set in their series: “The Queer Left,” which is the first to focus on LGBTQ+ work (though individual queer authors, like Judith Butler, have been included in previous sets).

Overall, the set presents radical queer thought in a rather limited perspective, mostly focused on white, cisgender gay men (and some lesbians) who love colons and subtitles. Scrolling through previous editions, this is obviously an ongoing issue with Verso’s understanding of “radical thinkers,” but it dovetails neatly with the existing genealogy of queer thought, which over-emphasizes white cis authors of the 1970s. Where is Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology or This Bridge Called My Back? Where is an understanding that just because every essay in an anthology might not be explicitly queer, it can still apply to the lives of queer people & politics in ways that are important for all of us to recognize and understand?

But I digress.

Despite the limitations of the set as a whole, the individual works included in “The Queer Left” are worth exploring, particularly for their examination of sexuality and societal power dynamics, their focus on building community (and thereby building political power), and their plumbing of queerness and anti-capitalist thought. Moreover, they display a powerful disinterest in the kind of heteronormative, assimilationist thinking that has characterized mainstream LGBTQ+ politics for decades. At their best, these writers recognize both the gifts and limits of their experiences, and their insights still feel valuable 20 and 40 years on.

In time with Escoffier’s book launch, we spoke with the author about American Homo, Verso Books, and today’s queer left.

Tell me how you first came to write American Homo.

Well, American Homo consists of a series of essays that were written over a period of approximately 10 years, starting in 1985. The first was a piece about sexual revolution and the politics of gay identity, and that appeared in the Socialist Review, of which I was the executive editor at the time. Some of the intermediate essays were written for Outlook Magazine, and then the final essays were written after Outlook closed and I had moved back to New York.

Re-reading it now, what strikes me is that the intellectual framework they were written within no longer exists. Queer theory and the university programs of lesbian and gay studies were just coalescing, and around the time that the book was published, I think queer theory really became dominant.

Say a little more about that. How is the framework for your book — for these books in general — different from our post-queer-theory frame?

Well, what was meant by “left” at the time was defined by a Marxist framework — and Marxist frameworks are not totally comfortable with dealing with queer topics. Our Marxism was not the Marxism, say, of the Soviet Union, but it was a Marxism that had developed in reaction to the Soviet Union. It was not as economically determinist as Soviet Marxism, but it still had the important economic dimension.

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I would say all these books to some degree are trying to develop a theory based on the idea of a homosexual identity. That was a new idea, and I don’t think it crystalized in the United States until like the late ‘70s.

All four of these books stress class and race, and frequently have an economic dimension that queer theory never had. Also, queer theory didn’t really influence the writing of history in the same way that it has influenced writing about culture.

Why do you think Marxism dropped out of the U.S. queer conversation?

After the Soviet Union basically fell apart in the late ‘80s, the pull of what was called Western Marxism — the non-Soviet Marxism — changed and was no longer in contrast to the simple kind of historical determinism of the Soviet Union. Plus, I think queer theory and lesbian and gay studies had created an alternative framework that seemed more rooted in the ongoing issues of LGBT people.

Looking just at American Homo, what would you say is its relevance to today? Why do we need to revisit this book right now?

It was written before gay marriage, and the subtitle, Community and Perversity, may be a little cryptic to people nowadays. But once anything becomes institutionalized — like gay marriage — it forms a new kind of disciplinary and normalizing form of domination. It becomes a taboo thing to engage in sexual perversity. So I feel like what I try to explore in my book is the tension that exists between being part of a community, which has institutions, and the importance of sexual perversity to help preserve our freedom.

Also, one impact of the AIDS epidemic was to squelch our discussions about the significance of sexual perversity or sexual freedom. Frankly, I think that’s one of the great lessons that gay men offer to other people: We have had to learn how to live with promiscuity. I think it’s a lesson that both heterosexuals and other people can benefit from. Today, PrEP prompts a discussion about whatever you want to call it — perversity, promiscuity, or something like that. A new kind of discussion that isn’t totally locked up in the impact of the AIDS epidemic is a more complete discussion of sexuality and its importance.

Lastly, the queer left was never acknowledged, and all of us wrote our stuff in the face of the fact that the left had no interest in queer issues and was uncomfortable with queer issues. So in that sense, it’s important that Verso is publishing this part of the conversation.

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